What Are You Afraid Of?
I needed to put a period on it, but it wasn’t as easy as it sounded.
“It’s not that I don’t understand your confusion. Knowing yourself well isn’t easy. You know what kind of person you are, too—”
I was a calculating person who didn’t move easily unless there was something in it for me. I was also someone who constantly read other people’s faces—neither cold nor particularly emotional.
“—but the self you know is only the surface of you. Spend time talking with you, do things together, and it becomes easy to see.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
That was everything that made up the person called me.
What else could there possibly be beyond that?
No matter how hard I thought, nothing came to mind.
Was throwing me into this kind of confusion Yoon Narae’s strategy? I couldn’t grasp the intent behind her words.
“The reason I call you a false person is because you don’t know what you truly want. No—more precisely, it’s not that you don’t know. You’re deliberately avoiding it, denying it, running from it. That’s why the homeroom teacher and I both said those things to you. Don’t escape from reality. Don’t be afraid of getting hurt. You might get hurt, and you might hurt someone else. But the opposite is also true—you can be healed, and you can heal someone else.”
“......”
What Yoon Narae was saying was… wrong.
“You’re denying my words even now, aren’t you?”
“......”
“I’ll ask a different question this time. Have you ever once properly tried to face the past—to face Jo-hwa?”
“......”
No.
Not even once.
“Based on what I’ve heard from Jo-hwa, this is the conclusion I reach. Jo Yul. What exactly are you so afraid of?”
“!”
“I think I can figure out what you’re afraid of and why you’re running from reality. My guess might be right or it might be wrong, but I won’t tell you. Having someone hand you the answer can be nice, but I believe the best way is realizing it yourself. All right. Back to the main point. I’ll ask again. Why are you pretending not to know? What are you afraid of? Is it Jo-hwa? Or the past? Why are you trembling like a cornered mouse?”
“!”
Please don’t ask me questions like that.
Don’t throw me into confusion.
Don’t shake my beliefs and my wishes.
Don’t give me pain.
Don’t torment me!
“Jo Yul!”
“!”
Yoon Narae’s voice, heavy with force, snapped me back to my senses.
“Don’t look away from reality! That’s exactly why you’re a coward, and why no one can know your true feelings!”
“......”
As I stared at her with a blank, stupid expression, Yoon Narae spoke in a gentle face and a kind voice.
“Whatever your goal might be, when I watch you trying to learn about Jo-hwa, I can’t help thinking you might already know your own true feelings. Otherwise you wouldn’t be trying to find out about her at all. The contradictions and whims I see in you look like you’re flailing between your true heart and something else, unable to settle your mind, so you keep dodging the truth. And if I had to guess, that ‘something else’ is fear.”
“......”
I couldn’t even find a foothold for any answer. I just sat there dazed, listening to Yoon Narae’s words.
“I’ll rephrase the question. Are you hesitating?”
My head was far too tangled right now.
Nothing was sorting itself out.
I couldn’t tell what emotion I was feeling, couldn’t even read the flow of the situation, and I had no idea what I truly wanted. Because I was confused. I needed time and space to put things in order. So I answered like this:
“......I don’t know.”
“Trying to run away again?”
In that instant, anger surged up at her words. An anger that didn’t even know which direction it should face.
“I don’t know. I said I don’t know! What I’m supposed to do, why this is happening to me—I can calculate and think and think again and figure out the reasons, but I still can’t see what I have to do to get what I want into my hands. From that day until now it’s been stifling, like I can’t breathe. I don’t feel that way, but everyone around me keeps saying I do, so I don’t even know what’s what anymore! I don’t know what my true feelings are right now either!”
My head felt like it was about to split open.
The things I needed to figure out kept multiplying, and the more time passed the more exhausted and worn out I became. Yet compared to the time that was flowing, I hadn’t even tied the first knot. Of course I was getting impatient. All I’d been doing was putting on a show—pretending I was fine, pretending I had room to spare.
“......So you were desperate too.”
Yoon Narae’s words, tinged with sympathy, left me hollow.
I didn’t even know what the anger had been for, or who it had been aimed at. Emotion had simply seized my reason. That was all. That was why I couldn’t help feeling empty, and why I looked so stupid and pathetic.
“......I don’t want your pity.”
“I don’t know you that well myself, but from what I’ve heard from people who do know you, I figured you’d say that. Fine. From now on I won’t give you pity. But I want you to understand this much.”
“?”
I looked at Yoon Narae without even trying to hide how frayed and exhausted my mind was, wondering what she was going to say next.
She still looked full of confidence and completely at ease.
“I don’t know what kind of misunderstanding you’re under, so I’ll state the facts first. The reason the homeroom teacher and I are helping Jo-hwa is because we want whatever is happening between the two of you to end as well as possible—and we’re helping her so that it will.”
I’d already roughly expected that, so it didn’t surprise me much.
“I already figured that much.”
“Good, then.”
Relieved, Yoon Narae cleared her throat and returned to the main point.
“The homeroom teacher said it seems like you’re afraid of accepting the past. And the reason for that is Jo-hwa, right?”
“......”
I couldn’t get a single word out.
My head was far too tangled and I had no composure left to answer that question. How was I supposed to answer in this worst possible state? Because the answer to that question was the ultimate answer I was looking for. Even knowing that, Yoon Narae kept throwing questions at me that were hard to answer. Was she being cruel, or was she doing it for my sake? The two opinions collided inside me.
“I only know your past with Jo-hwa. Nothing more, nothing less. So I can’t even begin to understand how the two of you feel. But I can still help. It’s not like there’s anything special between you and me. I won’t deny that either. You’re just a classmate in the same class. And unlike you, who used to be Jo-hwa’s friend in the past, I’m her friend now. If I had to force some kind of connection between us, that would be the end of it.”
“Then why are you helping me? What benefit do you get out of helping me?”
I couldn’t tell whether I was the abnormal one or whether the people around me were special. The people around me made choices, said things, and acted in ways I simply couldn’t understand. No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t make sense of them. Yoon Narae was the same.
Even without her saying it, there was nothing special binding us together. And yet she was still helping me.
She had shown me a little pity now and then, but it was the light, common kind of pity anyone could offer.
Could someone really go this far for a person they had no connection to? If you asked me, I would say no. Because that was how people were, I believed.
Then was it because Yoon Narae was a righteous person?
That answer was wrong too. From everything I had observed so far, Yoon Narae was kind, considerate, and deeply caring toward others—but she didn’t strike me as particularly righteous.
So the answer narrowed down to two possibilities.
Either she belonged to the same category as the people I had never been able to understand, or I simply hadn’t grasped who Yoon Narae really was. I leaned toward the former.
Anyway, back to the point.
Why was Yoon Narae helping me?
I thought about it, but I couldn’t figure it out. So I decided the only way was to ask, and that was why I actually asked. Whether she would give me a proper answer even if I asked directly was another question.
“Does there need to be a reason to help a friend?”
“......”
As expected, she belonged to the category of people I couldn’t understand.
So the answer that came back was “for a friend.” It wasn’t an answer I hadn’t expected at all. The problem was that everyone around me was like this. You had to know yourself and know your enemy to win a hundred battles out of a hundred. But if I couldn’t understand the enemy, the fight got harder, I couldn’t even gain the upper hand in a deal, and I couldn’t seize the initiative either.
“You’re thinking about something again, aren’t you?”
“Whatever I’m thinking has nothing to do with you.”
I spat out the indifferent reply and had no choice but to stop thinking.
“You’re really strange.”
“Are you making fun of me?”
“That’s up to how you take it.”
It’s completely obvious you’re deliberately avoiding my eyes. I kept feeling like I was being led around by Yoon Narae’s intentions. This was important. One of the surest ways to seize the upper hand or the initiative in a fight or a deal was not to let the other person lead you around. Find your composure. Composure.
“Oh. We’re almost out of time.”
Suddenly Yoon Narae hurriedly shoved her writing tools and workbooks into her bag as she spoke.
“I have no intention of giving you every answer. But I will tell you which method is the most suitable for finding the answers.”
Isn’t that basically the same thing?
“What method?”
Once she finished packing, Yoon Narae stood up, slung her bag over her shoulder, and said,
“This time, don’t run away from reality. Face Jo-hwa again with your true feelings. Then you’ll be able to know what your true heart is. Even if you face her sincerely and still can’t figure out your true feelings, you’ll at least get a hint toward the answer you want.”
If that were possible, I never would have ended up in this mess. She knew perfectly well how I thought about Jin Jo-hwa and how I treated her, and yet she still said things like that. It felt like she was toying with me.
I didn’t bother smoothing out the automatic scowl on my face and let my dissatisfaction show.
“You really think that’s possible?”
“So you’re just going to keep living like this? With only three years left of your last youth?”
The life of youth I pursued and the one Yoon Narae pursued were probably very different, but I couldn’t find a reason to deny it. So I decided to stay silent. Of course, I didn’t look away from her gaze.
“......”
But Yoon Narae didn’t so much as flinch at my silence. She simply fixed the two braids that hung over her shoulders.
Once she finished with her hair, she opened her mouth again.
“Even if you’re afraid of accepting the past and Jo-hwa, that’s okay. Don’t worry about getting hurt. There are people who will heal you. Your family will be there, and so will the homeroom teacher. I’m here too. Even if I don’t have any special connection with you. Come crash into it. Come back covered in wounds. You’ll get hurt, but you’ll be able to find out what your true feelings are, right? You’ve never faced Jo-hwa with your true heart until now. Face each other, wound each other, talk, shout—and at the end of it, find out each other’s true feelings. Then we’ll heal the two of you. I don’t know how long it will take. But I can say with certainty that we can heal your wounds. Trust me, and trust the people around you.”
“......”
Still that incomprehensible category.
Full of hope, positive, kind, overflowing with consideration—like the protagonist of a novel.
Yoon Narae was my enemy.
And I had lost to her. Most of the time I simply stayed silent because I couldn’t find a reason to refute her. That made me so frustrated. My own powerlessness against Yoon Narae made my teeth grind.
Maybe… the reason I couldn’t argue back against her was because everything she said was true.
“What are you going to do? You can’t exercise your right to remain silent on this question. I want to face you right here and get your resolve.”
“Tch.”
“You can click your tongue and show your dissatisfaction all you want, but I’m not backing down.”
She was slowly applying pressure, but I still couldn’t answer.
Because my jumbled head couldn’t sort out a single thing, couldn’t calculate a single thing.
“......Just give me a little more time.”